What are reasonable and unreasonable expectations from vendors and vaping in general.
We have so many new vapers in the world and on ecf… It seems to have grown exponentially… and there is no sign of it slowing down.
I want the some of newer folks to try to understand a few things that it has taken me almost four years to wrap my head around..
On forums such as ECF, I see a lot of complaining about vendors, juice, equipment performance etc… misunderstandings and ignorance is at an all time high.
I want to say a few things about this.
There are poor vendors, charlatans and inferior products out there… but it is fairly easy to avoid them. There is also knowledge you can use to reduce your risk of buying something you wish you hadn’t.
I started vaping about a year into when the small vendors started springing up.
It seemed fairly easy to do a google search in early 2010 and exhaust your search in a half hour or less.
A complex juice back then was an RY4 or a two/three fruit mix… or a coffee flavored juice… adding some Havana gold to your Bobas.
People had only brands such as dekang to vape and these new vendors like a tasty vapor… Mrs. T’s, diy flavorshack etc… were so exotic…
That’s when I started… it was exciting.
This wasn’t long ago. Not long ago at all.
Around the time I started… it was growing quickly and I believe I started vaping around the time NETS were starting… Tasty Vapor had the first one that I remember.
The vaping community was pretty relaxed about many things then… Their expectations were tempered by trial and error…
Many of our vendors were like friends or family because so many of them were shlums like us on the forums that had the capital or balls to try to offer everyone else something cool.
There was a sense of trust… and an air of encouragement. The truly disgruntled learned how to DIY and some of them are our prized vendors today.
As the vaping community grew and the number of vendors grew, there were definitely some people that had no experience to run a business… good vendors survived, bad ones disappeared.
While the vaping community and vendor base grew, so did the number of veteran vapers…
…and all of these forces… new vapers, veteran vapers and vendors continue to shape the vaping world as we know it now.
I can’t blame a new vaper for being demanding and having high expectations… they started recently. There are now so many choices and so many vendors out there…
There is more misinformation and people just in it for the money now…
A new vaper expects the flavor to taste like the picture or the name of the juice. A new vaper expects customer service as good as any big business… A new vaper expects their tastes and preferences to be more of a standard –
I can’t blame them because the competition has introduced so much salesmanship into the game… and there seem to be more and more charlatans out there who make promises.
I tend to buy more juices that I like than juices I don’t like now… and while I don’t have a scientific formula… I do have some thoughts on this issue…
1. Try to have reasonable expectations about flavor. I want a good flavor too… but I really don’t believe that there are any Willie Wonkas out there. Juice flavor is limited by the # of flavoring companies out there and buy the method which it is delivered. Moist liquid and heat will probably never replicate the experience and flavor of chocolate, real cigarettes or some other flavors. It may come close and taste pretty good… but it simply won’t for most people.
2. As I mentioned, there are only so many flavoring companies out there. I always find out where my vendors get their flavorings. I do this because after vaping a few months, I could already tell you I didn’t like Flavouart’s caramel. It was the caramel flavoring in a juice that I hated… so I knew I would hate other juices that used it too. Your personal library of this knowledge grows as you ask questions and try things. There are about 20 flavors on my list by particular flavoring companies I avoid like the plague… and there are also some I gravitate towards because I know I like them. I like TFA fruits… I like anything by Decadent Vapor… I hate Flavourart, Flavor West and TFA tobaccos. Etc etc etc
2.5: … and many of these new and these Boutique companies really make me angry because MOST of them use the same flavorings everyone else uses… not that there is anything wrong with these flavorings… it’s that they have the balls to try to hide this and claim they use “only the highest quality ingredients.”
Well, people… if they aren’t bragging about exactly what these flavorings are… or if they MAKE them themselves, then they ARE NOT SPECIAL…
I respect the guy at Fuzion Vapor a lot – he claims he uses TFA flavorings… which are quite good… yet ordinary… despite this, the guy masterfully mixes them IMO… so… he has confidence in his ability… he also charges a very fair price.
On the reverse side… someone brand new who no one knows… someone who has relatively no mixing expertise to brag about won’t disclose their flavorings or nic source… and we pile on them because they have a fancy bottle and charge 10-30% more.
It’s perception. It’s psychology. So, you’ve tried this fancy vendor who charges more… the one with the fancy bottle who no one knows and who keeps their ingredients secret… you’ve tried it and like it… they have excellent customer service… cool… good for you. I liked almost everything I tried when I started too… I say keep on buying it – it’s working… but don’t allow yourself to believe that (in most cases) that you are truly vaping something that unique. You are vaping something you like. That’s what counts.
Wanna know a secret? ;-) I had a friend who had a juice we thought was good that no one was buying. I spent a few years in advertising etc… I advised her to change the name from American Tobacco to Eastwood’s fist (okay, that’s not the real juice and name change) the actual juice is quite popular to this day… but the juice FLEW off the shelves and became very very SCARCE just due to a name change. Get my point? But women are a demographic too… and eastwood’s fist is kind of masculine…mmm what might appeal to both men and women…. ? Isn’t this how they crated Justin Biber, Brittany Spears, The Monkees and Menudo?
3. The vendors who truly make unique juices with unique ingredients will BRAG about it. They’ll have a long story on their homepage like Ahlusion does… they’ll disclose enough to let you know… hey… yeah, we make or own flavorings… or 30%...
If a vendor is using a higher quality Nic and base, they will make sure you know… they’ll say: we charge more because we get our nicotine from (name known expensive and quality nic retailer).
Whenever a vendor vaguely claims: we use only the finest ingredients”
I immediately believe they suck and have nothing special to offer and I avoid them… well, maybe I’ll email them and ask what these fine ingredients are…
4. Sometimes I just want some menthol in nic+base… Sometimes I want a simple juice. It’s what works… this is what matters. When it comes down to it in the end, it’s about what you like and what works. And 5 pawns is worth the money if you like it… Who knows what their ingredients are… but their juice is their juice and there is nothing exactly like it because they do take some time making their own thing… not a huge fan myself, but I’d say they have something real behind their fancy packaging.
5. Have reasonable expectations from vendors. It breaks my heart to read a criticism like this: well, they should get out of business if they can’t keep the store open and stocked 24/7. This is simply unfair. Do the math. Consider all of the variables… and you may even be correct to some degree, just because someone makes good juice doesn’t mean they know how to run a business…
Some vendors do blow and need to be criticized… but many take a lot of unnecessary criticism from people who are simply ignorant about business and the vaping business.
6. Know that your tastes change a lot… in the beginning and even years later.
Much of the time, it is your perception that’s changed – not the juice. This is somewhat normal. Lot of people have written about this.
#7-1000…
Anyway, I just got going here… this isn’t intended to be a manifesto by any means. I haven’t even really proof read this. I have NO TIME these days ;-)
I do hope that my experiences… (and they are just my experiences)
help a few folks see things from a different angle…
This was inspired by a few days of thread surfing and seeing some complaints and disappointments that I feel could have been avoided by more experience and more realistic expectations.
We have so many new vapers in the world and on ecf… It seems to have grown exponentially… and there is no sign of it slowing down.
I want the some of newer folks to try to understand a few things that it has taken me almost four years to wrap my head around..
On forums such as ECF, I see a lot of complaining about vendors, juice, equipment performance etc… misunderstandings and ignorance is at an all time high.
I want to say a few things about this.
There are poor vendors, charlatans and inferior products out there… but it is fairly easy to avoid them. There is also knowledge you can use to reduce your risk of buying something you wish you hadn’t.
I started vaping about a year into when the small vendors started springing up.
It seemed fairly easy to do a google search in early 2010 and exhaust your search in a half hour or less.
A complex juice back then was an RY4 or a two/three fruit mix… or a coffee flavored juice… adding some Havana gold to your Bobas.
People had only brands such as dekang to vape and these new vendors like a tasty vapor… Mrs. T’s, diy flavorshack etc… were so exotic…
That’s when I started… it was exciting.
This wasn’t long ago. Not long ago at all.
Around the time I started… it was growing quickly and I believe I started vaping around the time NETS were starting… Tasty Vapor had the first one that I remember.
The vaping community was pretty relaxed about many things then… Their expectations were tempered by trial and error…
Many of our vendors were like friends or family because so many of them were shlums like us on the forums that had the capital or balls to try to offer everyone else something cool.
There was a sense of trust… and an air of encouragement. The truly disgruntled learned how to DIY and some of them are our prized vendors today.
As the vaping community grew and the number of vendors grew, there were definitely some people that had no experience to run a business… good vendors survived, bad ones disappeared.
While the vaping community and vendor base grew, so did the number of veteran vapers…
…and all of these forces… new vapers, veteran vapers and vendors continue to shape the vaping world as we know it now.
I can’t blame a new vaper for being demanding and having high expectations… they started recently. There are now so many choices and so many vendors out there…
There is more misinformation and people just in it for the money now…
A new vaper expects the flavor to taste like the picture or the name of the juice. A new vaper expects customer service as good as any big business… A new vaper expects their tastes and preferences to be more of a standard –
I can’t blame them because the competition has introduced so much salesmanship into the game… and there seem to be more and more charlatans out there who make promises.
I tend to buy more juices that I like than juices I don’t like now… and while I don’t have a scientific formula… I do have some thoughts on this issue…
1. Try to have reasonable expectations about flavor. I want a good flavor too… but I really don’t believe that there are any Willie Wonkas out there. Juice flavor is limited by the # of flavoring companies out there and buy the method which it is delivered. Moist liquid and heat will probably never replicate the experience and flavor of chocolate, real cigarettes or some other flavors. It may come close and taste pretty good… but it simply won’t for most people.
2. As I mentioned, there are only so many flavoring companies out there. I always find out where my vendors get their flavorings. I do this because after vaping a few months, I could already tell you I didn’t like Flavouart’s caramel. It was the caramel flavoring in a juice that I hated… so I knew I would hate other juices that used it too. Your personal library of this knowledge grows as you ask questions and try things. There are about 20 flavors on my list by particular flavoring companies I avoid like the plague… and there are also some I gravitate towards because I know I like them. I like TFA fruits… I like anything by Decadent Vapor… I hate Flavourart, Flavor West and TFA tobaccos. Etc etc etc
2.5: … and many of these new and these Boutique companies really make me angry because MOST of them use the same flavorings everyone else uses… not that there is anything wrong with these flavorings… it’s that they have the balls to try to hide this and claim they use “only the highest quality ingredients.”
Well, people… if they aren’t bragging about exactly what these flavorings are… or if they MAKE them themselves, then they ARE NOT SPECIAL…
I respect the guy at Fuzion Vapor a lot – he claims he uses TFA flavorings… which are quite good… yet ordinary… despite this, the guy masterfully mixes them IMO… so… he has confidence in his ability… he also charges a very fair price.
On the reverse side… someone brand new who no one knows… someone who has relatively no mixing expertise to brag about won’t disclose their flavorings or nic source… and we pile on them because they have a fancy bottle and charge 10-30% more.
It’s perception. It’s psychology. So, you’ve tried this fancy vendor who charges more… the one with the fancy bottle who no one knows and who keeps their ingredients secret… you’ve tried it and like it… they have excellent customer service… cool… good for you. I liked almost everything I tried when I started too… I say keep on buying it – it’s working… but don’t allow yourself to believe that (in most cases) that you are truly vaping something that unique. You are vaping something you like. That’s what counts.
Wanna know a secret? ;-) I had a friend who had a juice we thought was good that no one was buying. I spent a few years in advertising etc… I advised her to change the name from American Tobacco to Eastwood’s fist (okay, that’s not the real juice and name change) the actual juice is quite popular to this day… but the juice FLEW off the shelves and became very very SCARCE just due to a name change. Get my point? But women are a demographic too… and eastwood’s fist is kind of masculine…mmm what might appeal to both men and women…. ? Isn’t this how they crated Justin Biber, Brittany Spears, The Monkees and Menudo?
3. The vendors who truly make unique juices with unique ingredients will BRAG about it. They’ll have a long story on their homepage like Ahlusion does… they’ll disclose enough to let you know… hey… yeah, we make or own flavorings… or 30%...
If a vendor is using a higher quality Nic and base, they will make sure you know… they’ll say: we charge more because we get our nicotine from (name known expensive and quality nic retailer).
Whenever a vendor vaguely claims: we use only the finest ingredients”
I immediately believe they suck and have nothing special to offer and I avoid them… well, maybe I’ll email them and ask what these fine ingredients are…
4. Sometimes I just want some menthol in nic+base… Sometimes I want a simple juice. It’s what works… this is what matters. When it comes down to it in the end, it’s about what you like and what works. And 5 pawns is worth the money if you like it… Who knows what their ingredients are… but their juice is their juice and there is nothing exactly like it because they do take some time making their own thing… not a huge fan myself, but I’d say they have something real behind their fancy packaging.
5. Have reasonable expectations from vendors. It breaks my heart to read a criticism like this: well, they should get out of business if they can’t keep the store open and stocked 24/7. This is simply unfair. Do the math. Consider all of the variables… and you may even be correct to some degree, just because someone makes good juice doesn’t mean they know how to run a business…
Some vendors do blow and need to be criticized… but many take a lot of unnecessary criticism from people who are simply ignorant about business and the vaping business.
6. Know that your tastes change a lot… in the beginning and even years later.
Much of the time, it is your perception that’s changed – not the juice. This is somewhat normal. Lot of people have written about this.
#7-1000…
Anyway, I just got going here… this isn’t intended to be a manifesto by any means. I haven’t even really proof read this. I have NO TIME these days ;-)
I do hope that my experiences… (and they are just my experiences)
help a few folks see things from a different angle…
This was inspired by a few days of thread surfing and seeing some complaints and disappointments that I feel could have been avoided by more experience and more realistic expectations.
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and that is about all it is worth
